


Colocynth

by kaliforniabird



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Romantic Friendship, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-03
Updated: 2013-07-14
Packaged: 2017-12-17 14:06:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/868427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaliforniabird/pseuds/kaliforniabird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>WARNING: SPOILERS FOR 7/01/13 UPDATE<br/>(I thought I would be kind and add that for those who aren't that far in the comic.)<br/>A Karkat death prompt. Turning his sort of silly-atmospheric death into a serious one with a little introspection on Karkat's part as he is slowly bleeding to death. And a little bit of bitterness and disappointment come to surface as he thinks of a certain space witch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Disappointment

**Author's Note:**

> This is only a drabble, so I'm not going to make anything else out of it. MAYBE I'll add a few more drabbles with it, but I'm pretty lazy, as you can probably tell from the writing. It's really superfluous and long-winded, but I didn't feel like editing it. It's just supposed to be there. For you. To read. And possibly enjoy or hate. The title refers to a certain bitter apple. I don't know many people who ship JadeKat, so let me know if you guys like the pairing or not. And yes, I did add a few recap bits of dialogue. Because I'm a little shit and that's how I roll.

_HAHA! YOU THINK I CARE ABOUT PASSWORDS?_

_COMPARED TO THIS, THE PASSWORDS WERE A GODDAMN LAWNMEAL!!!_

_I WOULD FUCKING KILL TO HAVE YOU GIVE PASSWORDS AGAIN, ESPECIALLY IF IT MEANT UNLOCKING REGULAR JADE FROM HER CORRUPTED EMPIRE SERVING BARKFIEND STATE!_

_Sorry, Karkat, there is no password. Not this time._

* * *

 

He felt himself fall and hit the forest floor, the back of his head smashing harshly against the ground, his body bouncing slightly on impact. He felt himself slowly fading, the ache of wanting to writhe in pain and humiliation disappearing. His eyes stared blankly upward, not seeing, his vision darkening as his newly-hued red irises flattened and his pupils glazed over. Strawberry tears leaked from the corners of them. He fought to grit his teeth in an effort to hold in his shouts of agony, growling and grunting, snarling as he fought to keep in the pain and embarrassment of his exposed bright scarlet blood, welling up and flowing over his sides in streams. Shouts from Kanaya and other background noises fell on his deaf ears, and he couldn’t help but be a little bitter, despite the fact that he knew he would be revived, he would only really be dead for a moment, and he was coming back. Poof, and he’d be alive again.

He was bitter because all that time, all that time, he’d been waiting for her, for Jade. To finally see her _in person._ To see her, to hear her voice, to smell her scent, to feel her soft human skin against his thick gray flesh, to stroke her wild ebony locks, familiar to his race, and yet so foreign. He wanted to talk to her, to have a fucking _normal conversation_ with someone who wouldn’t exchange masked words with underlying meanings to them because honestly he was tired of such banters, exchanging barbs and trying to decode and decipher the secret message hidden in insults, or as Dave put it, “reading between the lines.” He just wanted to hear her speak to him like he was an equal, to be civil and even _kind_. She was sympathetic and compassionate and caring, the complete opposite of him. But she was so much like him, the same values, the same experiences, the same self-loathing, the same honesty when it came to her friends. It was almost like looking at his own reflection, only it was _Jade._

He had wanted for them to meet as planned—somehow managing to find each other, crashing on the meteor or on Skaia or another planet or moon in the newfound void session, and have one big sappy reunion, throwing a pointless party before defeating the Batterwitch and Lord English and winning the game. He wanted to meet a normal Jade, one who would smile constantly and eventually bond with the remaining ( _sane_ ) trolls. Both her and Egbert.

Egbert. How he missed that stupid fool. Was that his shout he’d heard…? Or was that only wishful thinking?

A flash of green told him he was still alive, still slowly dying, only to be revived.

And for what? To prove a point?

He hated the new Jade, a farce compared to the real one.

And he could only think how he had wanted for them to meet—to slowly bond and get to know each other and realize how similar or even not-so-similar they were, but how compatible they were. As friends or more, he didn’t know. He only knew that he held a newfound curiosity for the spectacled witch, a curiosity to touch her, feel her, smell her, look into her eyes and see what lay there. He wanted for them to grow on each other, for her sweetness to soothe his callused surface, to gradually wear away his guard, his wall, his tough exterior. He wanted to make her laugh, make her mad, to make her blush, to make her smile, to _make her happy._ And they could understand each other, just like moirails, so similar and yet so unalike.

And he was disappointed in her. He could still see the old Jade in this new warped clone. A crack beneath the twisted surface, humor behind the animosity, an attempt to restrain her own viciousness. He could see her struggling, trying to break free and stop this, stop it all. But her efforts were half-hearted, and he knew it was because a part of her had wanted this. A part of her wanted this numbness, this darkness to consume her and wipe out all of the guilt and shame she’d had. A part of her wanted to give up and walk away, to leave the stress and tragedy all behind and start fresh, to switch sides and maybe win the game that way.

And so Karkat was bitter. He was bitter because he was dying for nothing, just for some sick game that Jade was playing. She was toying with him like he was vermin, like he was beneath her, and he hated it. He was disappointed because the girl he’d had so much hope and faith and respect for had succumbed to the temptation, to her own inner demons while he, the coward, had to fight his own battles alone when he’d thought he’d have a comrade in her to fight beside him. He was humiliated because he was dying, sprawled out to examine like some sort of gutted animal by a hunter ready to skin, a fish bleeding by the hook, hanging there for all to see and watch. He was humiliated because of his unnatural blood color, a color that wasn’t supposed to exist at all, a moniker to remind himself and all others that no matter what, he didn’t belong, that he would always be a pariah. But most of all, he was humiliated because he was falling for a girl that no longer existed, a girl that was at that very moment tormenting him like he didn’t matter to her at all, like he was some sort of plaything.

The hurt coursed in his veins and throbbed in his alien heart, pumping it all out in a cycle out of his wounds to mix in the ground of the planet of the girl he’d unwillingly given his heart to. It was almost all gone before the last trickle of blood trailed across his teeth and down his chin, and his heart gave out, and by then he was gone, vanished from that plane of existence and blissfully relieved of the pain.

He had died with his blood burning hot in passion, bitter and hurt and angry and hateful for the girl who only called herself Jade but was nothing like the fun-loving hero of space.


	2. Thief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah. You guys got me. I'm gonna post more because I just love Karkat so much. And I felt like he didn't deserve to die the way he did, and I bet he didn't think he deserved to either, so more drabbles.

He didn’t want to die like this.

_He hadn’t wanted to die like this._

He wanted to go out like the others—fighting for their lives, trying to survive in this game like warriors, like heroes and heroines. He wanted to protect someone. He wanted to save them from the darkness, the evil, this apocalypse and all that it entailed. The dangers. The tragedy. The loss.

Even from themselves.

He hadn’t wanted to die like this.

Like some forgotten piece of filth on the side of the street left to rot, put there for no reason, no purpose. Just left there, forgotten and alone.

He was alone.

* * *

 

He hadn’t wanted to die like this.

As a pawn, as a part of someone’s sick little game, a plaything, a toy. He’d wanted a purpose, a sort of poetic justice to his final end, the last chapter. Not something meaningless like this. He was a demonstration and nothing more. He, the leader, the guide, the one who ultimately led everyone to where they were now, trying to get them to safety and even dare to hope for comfort.

He was being degraded.

And he couldn’t help but feel as if he’d been cheated. As if his life had been cut short. Before he could do any of the great things he’d wanted to do.

And with the knowledge that they were bringing him back, no second chances to live again. No impossible chance of revival after he would eventually die again.

And he had to ask himself, _Why wasn’t I strong enough to reach god tier? Why wouldn’t the game let me?_

A meaningless death. And it stung him, that fact that was despairingly true.

He’d been cheated.

_We trusted you._

Lies.

_Traitor._

How could she have done that to him?

_I thought we were all friends._

Ordered him to be killed, like some piece of trash.

_I thought you were my friend._

Stop.

_I hate you._

Stop it.

_It hurts._

Stop it.

_It hurts._

STOP IT ALL!

* * *

 

He hadn’t meant to die this way.

 _He hadn’t_ wanted _to die this way._

And she’d taken it all away.

Just like the thief she’d boasted herself to be.


End file.
